


Playing With Fire

by aldiara



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Action, Anal Sex, Bring Back The Porn Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Exhibitionism, Fuck Or Die, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Redheads Have More Fun, Rimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26244655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aldiara/pseuds/aldiara
Summary: Ancel and Berenger are beset by bandits and have to put on a show to get away. Berenger is predictably rubbish at it.
Relationships: Ancel/Berenger (Captive Prince)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 90
Collections: Bring Back The Porn Challenge





	Playing With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Bring Back the Porn 2020. Fuck or die type thing, with some hurt/comfort, maybe some hypothermia smut AND magical healing cock in there too if you squint? Trope bingo!

~~~

The route along the lake did not turn out as safe as promised: not for an aristocrat alone with his pet, and his saddlebags burning up with treason. Ancel, who had advocated for the more comfortable main road, and an actual guard detail, made a note to tell Berenger _I told you so_ at great length, repeatedly, later. If they survived to tell each other anything, that was.

They’d not been bound yet, which was an advantage, Ancel told himself. And there were only five bandits grouped around the camp. Who were armed to the teeth, and looking rough, and had been clearly told exactly where to ambush them. 

Ancel sighed, and took in their surroundings while Berenger did his level best to fool their captors with feigned ignorance and aristocratic affront. The five men had taken them to a wide open space by night-dark Vesper Lake, illuminated only by a campfire clearly too massive for so small a force. A quick look around confirmed to Ancel that there were too many horses and tents to account for just these five. Well, fuck. 

“What’s this, then?” The bandit leader had pulled out the rolled-up accounts of provisions and militia numbers that the prince could count on in the foothill regions of Lys. Ancel bit his lip in sheer frustration. Who even needed these precise numbers? They could have merely memorised some totals and discreetly let the prince know that a certain fuckload of unwashed local would-be heroes were waiting to die ignobly on his command. 

The bandit leader was still reading, not bothering to hide his grim satisfaction. “The Regent will pay well for these. Dabbling in treason, are we, my lord?”

“And why would I do that?” Berenger demanded, in a decent approximation of a bored lord’s drawl. “The Regent knows I’m loyal to him. We took a noonday rest at an inn yesterday. Perhaps someone snuck those into the wrong saddle bags.”

“Horseshit. You’re either lying or your little whore is up to more than you pay him for.” The bandit leader ran his eyes over Ancel with a look he didn’t particularly care for. 

“The boy’s no traitor.” Ancel suppressed a sigh at the conspicuous sharpening of Berenger’s voice. If he’d been any closer, he’d have tried for a discreet kick against his shin. The bandit seemed to have heard it too, if his mockingly cocked brow was anything to go by.

Berenger took a deep breath and settled back into his disgruntled aristocrat’s demeanour. “He’s just my pet. He can’t even read. I brought him for diversion, that’s all.” Ancel resisted the sour temptation to point out that by now he could read perfectly decently, even if it took him a little while. His hard-won pride in literacy was hardly worth the heightened attention of some Regent-bought brigands. He bit his lip instead and did his best to look as uneducated, helpless, and pretty as possible.

“That so?” one of the other bandits spoke up. “Aren’t you Lord Berenger? I heard you only get hard for the ladies. That you bought yourself a pet just for appearance’s sake.”

Ancel’s heart sank as he watched the bandits smirk and elbow each other. It was one thing to disperse such rumours in the intimate gossip bubble of court. It was another out here in the wild, with these hard-eyed men who looked at Berenger and saw only his plain, boring clothes and boring, dependable horse and an extravagant, loose-haired pet in jewels and a silk shirt who did not fit the pattern. He wished he’d tied back his hair and donned inconspicuous clothing, although Berenger had insisted he dress as himself.

The bandit leader stepped up, eyeing them both suspiciously. “I heard that, too. And that your pet fucks around on you at court. And that you never touch him.”

Sensing Berenger’s agitation, Ancel demurely slunk closer to him, nudging his shoulder into Berenger’s arm in as innocuous a fashion as he could manage. This was a nuisance. It was useful, at court, to be seen as the flighty pet who was obviously dissatisfied with his ascetic master; who could be flirted with and pawed at and entrusted with the occasional thoughtless bit of information. Out here, it was a different matter. 

Berenger, bless him, seemed to catch on well enough. He brought his arm around Ancel in a sufficiently casual display of arrogant possessiveness. “Well, you heard wrong. I touch him all the time.”

“Oh yeah?” The leader, grinning, exchanged glances with his men, and Ancel’s heart sank. 

“Prove it. Fuck him.”

Berenger drew himself up to his full height and spluttered aristocratically. Ancel had no idea if it was an act or genuine, and he did not care; his mind was racing, assessing scenarios, gauging reactions, projecting outcomes. He _knew_ this game. He’d played it since he was thirteen.

Coming quickly to an inevitable decision, he stepped in front of Berenger, facing the bandits, and arranged his face in the prettiest pout he could muster. “What, do you think he wouldn’t?” He grinned, reaching back to palm Berenger’s crotch, ignoring his gasp of shocked outrage. “Just because you’re watching? I’ll have you know, gentlemen, I am extremely fuckable. In _any_ circumstance.” He winked at the nearest man, swiping his tongue across his lips. Subtlety would be wasted here.

He was rewarded with jeers and crude gestures. He simpered and winked and worked his lashes; swayed his hips deliberately as he swung around to face Berenger.

Who was staring at him with exactly the sort of anguished alarm Ancel might have predicted from him. He bit his lip to hold in a sigh.

“Well, my lord?” he said instead, loudly, and draped himself artfully against Berenger’s body. “You’re not usually shy about fucking my brains out. Who cares about an audience?” He grinned and stretched provocatively, tugging his silk shirt over his head in one fluid motion, and letting it drop to the ground to a chorus of cheers. 

Bastards. He liked that shirt.

He saw Berenger’s eyes flick behind him, assessing the positions of their captors. He knew Berenger was coming to the same conclusions as him: it wasn’t looking great. Their horses were securely tethered under the trees at a decent distance. The bandits were armed, had them surrounded, and who knew how long they had before the rest of them arrived. 

Ancel toyed at the lacings of his trousers, tilting his body sideways so the men could see as he undid them. Berenger’s brows beetled, his face going dark and tense. Ancel wanted to tell Berenger that this didn’t matter, nudity was nothing, they needed a distraction and this was all they had, but there was no real way of saying all that, not under watchful eyes.

“Don’t you want to, my lord?” he said instead, pitching his voice deceptively low, so the bandits could still hear him. “You know you’re not here to peddle any stupid papers. You only came out here to play, because I told you I’d enjoy being fucked in the wild.”

There were hoots and more jeers at that. Ancel ignored them, toeing off his boots and pulling open his trousers. 

Berenger swallowed, his jaw clenching. Then he put his hands on Ancel’s hips, steeling himself a little too visibly, and pulled him close. His eyes were blazing at Ancel, but they kept flickering past him to their captors, and his hands were digging into Ancel’s hips in near-painful tension.

“I can’t-” he hissed. Ancel cut him off with a kiss. He took his time about it. By now Berenger knew how he kissed when he meant it. It was slow and real, an anchor point. 

“Don’t look at them,” he whispered fiercely when their lips parted. He cradled Berenger’s face, blocking his view, looking into his slightly dazed eyes. “They don’t matter. Just look at me.”

Berenger stared at him as if against his own better judgement. His night-dark eyes caught and reflected the dancing flames behind them. 

“This is not a game,” he gritted out through his teeth, barely audible.

At any other time, Ancel would have laughed at him and disabused him of the notion. Everything was a game. The only difference was the magnitude of the stakes. 

But there was no time, with five pairs of hostile, hungry eyes on them, to quibble over semantics.

“Don’t worry,” he murmured, running his tongue up the long, exposed line of Berenger’s throat. “I’ll get us out of this.” The last was a mere whisper directly in Berenger’s ear. He could feel him shudder under the warmth of his breath. Could feel, too, the strain in his entire body, fury and anxiety coiled tight. Ancel refused to let it get to him. There was nothing to be done about Berenger’s lack of thespian skill or inclination, or their lack of allies or weapons. 

Instead, he pulled back just far enough to let Berenger see his face, and put all the power of persuasion he had into his eyes.

“Trust me,” he mouthed, then dragged his lips against Berenger’s in a deceptively chaste caress. He felt the quick inhale of breath against his lips, and the instinctive lean of Berenger’s body, as if he could not resist another kiss, even now. When he pulled back, Berenger’s eyes were full of quiet affirmation. 

It would have to do. __

 __Ancel rewarded him with his brightest smile, then promptly turned in his arms, snugging his hips against Berenger’s, and pushed his trousers down.

There were sharp intakes of breath around the roaring fire, and Berenger murmured a frustrated curse. Ancel ignored them all, shimmying out of the remainder of his clothes, and ran his hands first through his hair, then down his body in a slow caress that he knew drew the eye. He sighed, and wriggled, and touched himself with throaty noises, exposed to the hungry light of the fire and the men around it.

He drew a line, falling back on years of practice, between what mattered and what did not. 

It did not matter that the men were staring at him with heat and violence in their eyes; it only mattered that they weren’t looking anywhere else. It did not matter that he was naked, utterly vulnerable. Naked did not mean helpless if your body was a weapon, and Ancel knew exactly how to use his. He let his eyes drift half-shut, dropped his head back against Berenger’s shoulder, and pulled Berenger’s hands up to his chest. At the first touch of Berenger’s calloused fingers against his nipples, he let out a pretty moan. They were peaked from the night chill already, which helped; he writhed against Berenger’s body and made more noises until Berenger got the hint and started playing with his nipples. He noticed, with a weird mix of pride, terror and elation, that Berenger was more than half-hard, although he could feel his reluctance in every rigid line of the body pressed against his. 

“Yes,” he murmured, pushing back, circling his hips. “Feels so good.”

From under his half-lowered lashes, he could see the men drawing closer, pulled in by the lure of his pale, writhing body. He let his eyes drift shut a moment, drawing on the power of exposure. He might be the only one naked but he was also directing the scene, pulling strings with every movement. He ground back slowly, moving his hips, palming his cock. He let out small, breathless noises.

“Fuck him already,” somebody called out, chuckling. “Can’t you see the little slut is gagging for it? Shove it in him, before I do it for you.”

When he felt Berenger go even tenser behind him, he turned to give him a heavy-lidded smile, before letting his eyes slide, casually, towards the man who’d spoken. 

“You like playing with fire?” His voice was a soft croon, low with arousal. He saw the effect it sparked in the man’s harsh face, and followed it up with a smile. “Want to see _me_ play with it?”

Half a lazy spin brought him away from Berenger’s arms and within reach of the campfire; he bent provocatively, eyes kept on the man’s face, and pulled a decent-sized brand out of the fire slowly enough to make it a tease rather than a threat. 

A toss of his hair let him check that he had all the men’s attention. Good. He turned again, slow and sensuous, bending back as he whirled the brand in a crackling circle that spat sparks close to his nipples. Letting out a purring noise, he swayed after the arc of the flame and licked his lips as he arched towards it. He was hard himself now, amusingly enough – not for the cock-whipped imbeciles who watched him with open mouths, or even for Berenger, poised at the edge of the fire, but for the game itself: for the dance and the dare and the danger, for knowing he could manoeuvre these men with a twist of his hips just as he spun the gold-orange flames. He drew the brand dangerously close to his body, knowing the way the flame would lick and twist seductively across his pale skin; flung back his head so his hair, redder than flame, whipped across the top of his buttocks. He shimmied and rolled his hips towards the heat of the fire, slow and dreamy, as if begging it to touch him.

Motion nearby. Hands reaching for him. He licked his lips, smiled coyly, and danced out of reach. When he saw the dark blur of Berenger diving for the nearest abandoned sword, he opened his mouth and _moaned_ , pumping his pelvis in a wild, obscene thrust towards the sparking fire brand. He was hard and glistening in the firelight and knew precisely how he looked, abandoned and wanton, a wild, lustful thing surrounded by licking flames, begging to be taken.

They were still moving towards him when the first scream cut the night. 

Ancel leaped, perfectly coordinated, across the fire, felt the spitting sparks against his feet and legs, twisted in mid-air and flung the firebrand before his feet touched the ground. Someone screamed and stumbled, and then the fire roared tall. The screaming rose to an unbearable pitch. There were other screams, too, angry and confused, and the clang of weapons. Ancel turned to run, and found himself face to face with a glinting sword and a furious face.

“You fucking traitorous _whore_ ,” the bandit spat, and swung his arm. Ancel, driven by pure instinct, danced out of reach and performed another half-spin that brought him inside the man’s guard. He grabbed his upper arm as if he were a dance partner and let his own momentum whirl them around. When the man’s bulk was between him and the fire, he let go, lifted high and kicked for good measure. The fire exploded into mad sparks as the bandit fell flat into the middle of it. His screams joined his fellow’s, who was kicking feebly on the ground. 

Someone grabbed his hair. A hot, searing pain sliced across his chest. He opened his mouth but had only uttered half a stunned cry of pain when an impact from behind knocked him to his knees. His hair was free. He rolled out of the way of the furious grapple behind him and looked around wildly for other lines of attack.

There were none. A man wreathed in flames screeched in agony, his flailing arms flinging sparks into the night. Another body shrivelled in the fire pit, while two others lay nearby, sword-pierced and motionless. The sounds of gurgling screams and sizzling flesh filled the night. 

A guttural scream cut off suddenly; then Berenger was in front of him, wild-eyed and slick with blood, hands digging painfully into Ancel’s upper arms. “Ancel! Are you alright? Fuck, you’re hurt. Let me see.”

Ancel followed Berenger’s gaze to his own chest and stared with dreamlike confusion at the long, shallow gash across the top of his chest. A distant pain was nudging at him, politely, as if requesting entry. 

“It’s fine,” he managed, bringing his shaking fingers to his chest. The blood was gathering, night-dark, in the shallow cut, but was not dripping down. “It’s nothing. Just a scratch?” It came out as a question.

Berenger nodded wildly, pulling him to his knees, looking around. There were distant noises in the woods. Berenger cursed and scrambled for the dead bandit leader, tugging the papers out of his bloodied hands and shoving them inside his pockets. By the time he was done, the noises were no longer distant. Ancel let Berenger pull him towards the horses, but at the cracking of branches in the woods and the raised voices coming directly towards them, he changed direction and headed instead towards the glassy, night-black surface of the lake. 

Ancel stumbled along behind him, barely taking in his curt babble about losing pursuers in the water. Water. That was the opposite of fire, no? He’d killed two men with fire. He could still smell them roasting. Perhaps he shouldn’t go in the water.

A laugh tore through him, harsh and mirthless. Berenger slapped a hand over his mouth and dragged him into the dark lake. The water felt like silk, cool and soothing, until he lost the ground.

He kicked in sudden panic. “I can’t swim!”

“Shhhh.” Berenger pulled him until Ancel’s back draped against his chest. His mouth was hot and urgent against Ancel’s ear. “I’ve got you. Just float.”

Ancel let go. It didn’t matter anyway. He hadn’t burned; he wouldn’t drown. He stared up at the star-speckled sky as he drifted through the silk-cool water, weightless, floating, borne up by Berenger’s calm, rhythmic strokes beneath him. Back at the shore, the voices rose, then gradually dropped as the water bore them away.

~~~

He came to on the far shore, shivering on the ground despite the balmy night air, while Berenger squeezed water out of his cloak, then urged Ancel into the shelter of a pine tree with low-hanging branches. He inspected the cut on Ancel’s chest again, murmuring assurances about it not bleeding anymore. Ancel did not care about bleeding, or cold, or even prickly pine needles. As soon as he felt he had some control over his limbs, he shoved at Berenger, climbing into his lap, seeking his lips.

Berenger made a muffled noise into his mouth but pulled him close, kissing him hard. “It’s alright,” he murmured, in between kisses. “We’re safe. They won’t find us here.”

“Cold,” Ancel murmured, burrowing closer, into Berenger’s lap. “Make me warm.” He moved his hips; fairly unmistakably, he thought, since he was still naked. Berenger wasn’t. That seemed inconvenient. Ancel undid his laces smoothly, never interrupting the kiss, and slid his hand inside.

Berenger gasped, and stilled his motion with his hands on Ancel’s hips.

“No, wait. We don’t have-” 

“Don’t care.” Ancel pushed against him anyway, trying desperately to take him inside, to have something take the space inside him that was filled with the sound of screaming and the scent of burning flesh. It was no good, though; he was chilled and wet, his body clenched in a tight, protective curl. When Berenger drew away from him, he let out an involuntary sound that came out, to his mortification, more sob than angry growl. 

“No. Please. I need…” 

He didn’t know how to say what he needed. He thought of Berenger’s curious fixation on making him articulate specific wants and needs, which Ancel usually indulged with a certain degree of fondness despite his attendant exasperation, but the thought of being made to put into words this crawling ache of dread, revulsion and horror inside him now, nearly sent him into a panic. He dug his fingers into Berenger’s shoulders, fighting for breath.

“Shh. Ancel. Shhh.” Berenger’s mouth against his, lips warm and firm. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re fine.” He ran his hands through Ancel’s wet hair, tipped up his chin and peppered his face with kisses: eyelids, nose, cheeks, and finally his mouth.

Ancel took the kisses blindly, returned their aching tenderness with more aggression than he truly felt. He did not want tenderness, though, did not want to be soothed; he wanted to be swept up in heat and want and forgetting. He wanted to burn up in the sweet frenzy of fucking until the night’s other memories went up in flames.

He reached down again, found Berenger’s cock, half-hard despite the chilly damp of his wet trousers. He pulled it out, stroked firmly along the thickening shaft until Berenger groaned into his mouth. “Fuck me,” he demanded, in between desperate, searing kisses. “Stick it in me, fuck me until I can’t think. I need to not think. I need – aah.”

Berenger had flipped him over, in one smooth movement, spread him across the damp cloak and covered him with his body, the clammy shirt gone and replaced by Berenger’s warm skin. “Whatever you want,” he whispered hoarsely, brushing Ancel’s hair aside so he could kiss the side of his face, fiercely. “Whatever you need.”

He moved down Ancel’s body, anchoring him with his mouth and hands, never letting go. Ancel nearly sobbed in relief when he felt Berenger’s warm hands spread his cheeks open, felt the warm, broad swipe of a tongue. Berenger did not push, just gave him long, slow licks as if there was no danger or rush in the world. Ancel drew in a long, shuddering breath, and let his body relax. The warm, wet motion continued, swirling occasionally, but teasingly, without urgency, until Ancel lifted his hips and sought after it, his body opening and softening. Berenger took his cues from him. He concentrated his efforts when Ancel started to roll his hips; the leisurely exploration turned into a more pointed effort, circular, slick, and maddening. Ancel moaned encouragement, gripping handfuls of woollen cloak as his cock swelled and rubbed against the damp fabric. He started cursing when Berenger dipped inside, fucking him slowly and firmly with his tongue, holding him open with both hands. He’d always been overly sensitive around his rim, and Berenger knew it; he worked his tongue in slow, flicking licks before probing deeper, until Ancel was writhing and cursing and begging him for more.

By the time Berenger finally draped himself over him and brought himself into position, Ancel was shaking with need. He lifted his hips to the slick pressure of Berenger’s cock and took him in without resistance; felt himself parting like a ripe peach, wet and hot and slippery. Berenger made a lovely, wrecked noise against his nape, bore himself up on his arms and pushed, so he slid home in one long, perfect thrust. 

Ancel let out a low, keening noise, then dropped his head to the damp ground and gave himself up to Berenger’s rhythm with a profound sense of relief. There was no room, in the cool, pine-scented space around them, for anything that wasn’t them. He breathed in the familiar scent of wool and leather and let Berenger fuck him. There was an edge of roughness to it, a lingering trace of frantic worry, but if Berenger’s hands were tighter on him than usual, the pace of the fuck more urgent, his lips were still soft and soothing against Ancel’s nape, making him shiver and writhe. 

“You were so…” Berenger grated out against his ear, his breath coming in hot, near-sobbing gasps. “Fuck. Ancel. I was so frightened for you but you were incredible. So fearless. So beautiful. I wanted-“

He cut himself off with a curse and a hard thrust that had Ancel shuddering, even as he had to fight a smug grin. “You wanted what?” he demanded, squeezing just so he could hear Berenger curse again. “To stop me? Save me? Fuck me right in front of them, like they wanted?”

Berenger made a noise that was almost pained, and doubled his efforts; his angle shifted so he hit Ancel in his sweet spot with merciless precision, over and over again. Ancel cried out and squeezed shut his eyes; the pleasure was pulsing through him, rising fast and hot like flames.

“Yes, damn you,” Berenger ground out, fucking into him. “You drive me crazy. I was supposed to think how to save us, not” – another groan, hoarse and desperate – “not wanting to… fuck… just… mount you and _take_ you, right there, like nothing else mattered.”

He rammed into him again, almost brutally hard. Ancel threw back his head and came, letting the hot waves of climax roll over him and burn him up. He shuddered uncontrollably, his hips rolling in a drawn-out release that blacked out his vision and had him spending in a helpless, prolonged gush. He noticed only peripherally Berenger going rigid inside him, and then jerking with a harsh cry of his own, hips pushing forward as he spurted inside Ancel, until he lost control of his grip and they both collapsed to the damp wool.

“You didn’t,” Ancel managed eventually when he could almost breathe again, “need to save us. I was on it.”

Berenger’s body shook against his in a near-soundless laugh; then Berenger rolled them both to their sides, his arms coming around Ancel, warm and firm.

“I know,” he murmured, brushing warm kisses against Ancel’s nape. “You were magnificent.”

Memory flooded back uninvited: the smell of roasting flesh, the screaming. He tensed despite himself. “The fire – I didn’t mean to.” He hated how small it came out sounding, how utterly appalled.

Berenger wrapped him more securely in his arms. “I know. But you did what you had to, and you did save us. They would have killed us. Eventually.” Ancel shuddered at the grim implications of the bitten-off word. Being held was suddenly not enough. He turned and burrowed into Berenger’s body, against his chest, under his chin. Berenger held him tight, made soft nonsense noises and stroked his hair. He murmured to him, mundane details about how at least the papers were safe; how tomorrow they’d find a way to get back home; how the prince would reward them for their loyalty.

Ancel did not give a fuck about the papers, the prince or the logistics but he soaked up the soothing flow of the words until his body had ceased trembling and he felt the welcome warmth of languor spread through his limbs.

“Next time we do this espionage thing for your stupid prince,” he murmured, half-asleep, into Berenger’s chest, “we take the main road.”

“Alright.” Berenger was still stroking his hair, long, slow strokes that made Ancel want to purr.

“And a wagon, so we don’t have to rely on lice-plagued inns.”

“Of course.”

“And some fucking guards.”

He fell asleep to a low rumble of laughter and the warm press of lips against his temple. “As you wish.”


End file.
